This invention relates to anchors for animal traps; and, more particularly, to an improved driver for use with disposable anchors to drive the anchors into the ground and secure the animal traps in desired locations.
Animal traps such as those shown and described in my U.S. Pat. Nos. 9,173,390, 8,898,952, 8,881,447, and 8,484,886 are used to trap small animals such as raccoons and the like. To facilitate trapping an animal, a trapper tries to determine a location where the animal will likely pass by, stop to feed or rest, etc. and set the trap at that location. It will be understood by those skilled in the art that unless a trap is firmly fixed in place, it may be dislodged by an animal, wind, rain, etc.
Accordingly, many traps are provided with a length of chain with one end of the chain fixed to the trap. The other, free end of the chain has an associated anchor which is driven into the ground to hold the trap in place. Typically the anchor is a disposable anchor meaning that once driven into the ground it stays there when the trap is subsequently moved.
To drive an anchor into the ground, a trapper employs a driver having one end contoured to be removably attached to the anchor. Once an anchor is affixed to this end of the driver, and the anchor is set in place, the trapper uses a hammer to repeatedly strike the upper end of the driver to drive it and the attached anchor into the ground. Once the anchor is driven a sufficient distance into the ground, the trapper pulls the driver out of the ground leaving the anchor in place.
A major problem with conventional drivers is that to assist the trapper in pulling the driver out of the ground, the driver has a handle attached to it which the trapper can grasp and pull upwards on, so to help pull the driver out of the ground. Conventional drivers have this handle welded to, or otherwise affixed to, the driver shaft. A major problem with conventional driver construction is that, over time, due to the pounding on the driver by the hammer in driving the anchor into the ground, fractures occur where the handle and driver shaft are joined. Then, when the trapper tries to pull the driver out of the ground using the handle, the handle breaks off. While this does not necessarily make the driver unusable, though it may, it does make it much more difficult for the trapper to pull the driver out of the ground, making the driver inconvenient to use.